


A Terrible Fate

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [13]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game), Westworld (TV)
Genre: Alright I should be done now, Amnesia, Death, Faulty Coding, Gen, Mentions of Maxwell and Charlie, Old Models, The Grue, Westworld Spoilers, guests - Freeform, hounds, no more chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-07 21:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10370124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Vanilla versions get faulty after awhile, but people still pay a ton of money to play them.Still, it complicates things when one 'wakes up'.





	1. Guest Plays For Death

**Author's Note:**

> *Has only watched the first six episodes of Westworld.*

/These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends./

What did that mean? Wilson wondered. He couldn't remember /where/ exactly he's heard it, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, and it circled around in his head, his own voice repeating the same line again and again and again.

He's said it before, whispered it in a frantic frenzy, his heart pounding hard in his chest as he leaned over someone, and yet…

How could he have? There was no one here but him, unless you counted that dreadful man that had tricked him here, and he's seen neither hide nor hair of him since the first day.

He's…he's fairly sure he's not seen him in person as of yet. Wilson was quite sure, because he's been alone for so long, dragging his feet over grass and dirt and mud and rock, narrowly avoiding terrible deaths by the hands or mouths or tendrils of the many monstrous creatures that inhabited this place. It's been such a long time, this solitude that weighed heavily on his shoulders, and no matter the-

The-

The…?

The what, exactly? Wilson stopped, wavered in his steps and put a hand to his head, trying to push away that shivering phrase and actually think /clearly/ for once. The thought was there, the knowledge was there, and then it was…was…

Gone, a puff of nonexistent smoke that left Wilson wondering what he had been thinking in the first place. 

Reaching a hand up, carefully as to not crush them, Wilson let his hand slide over the flowers of his garland, closing his eyes for a moment and trying to relax. It had been a hectic day, the hounds so much earlier than was natural, more numerous than normal, and he had only escaped by luck, by /chance/, the beefalo nearby in heat and ready to fight for admiration, for a mate, and the hounds were pummeled as he had made his escape. 

The memory of it bubbled into his mind, quieted his thoughts as he remembered the sheer relief in getting away, on seeing the monstrous canines getting trampled and crushed by cattle, of how one had, in its last moments, turned to him with a fresh bloodied face and its mouth ragged with, with…

Wait.

That didn't seem right.

Why were there strips of cloth in that thing's jaws? And the fresh blood, where did it…?

Wilson breathed deeply, shook his head to clear it. That didn't make any sense at all. 

It must have been his imagination, because if he had truly seen that he'd have started looking, searching everywhere because that meant /someone else was here/-

But no one else was here, Wilson knew this. He's searched far and wide, this whole damnable world and its horrific inhabitants, and he's never found trace of anyone. Dead, yes, the skeletons living proof and the artifacts they left behind sometimes revealed how they died (bee stingers, beefalo wool, hound teeth, pinecones and twigs), but never alive, breathing, living.

Never.

And yet…

Wilson continued on, under the massive pine trees and into the cooler forest. Those were just dreams, he told himself, nightmares of a terrible sort. They never made any sense, gibberish events and hazy actions, and the truly horrific ones, the ones he's started to wake to nowadays, those…

Well, it was laughable really. Such things would never happen to him and Wilson knew people, /humanity/ in general, would never stoop as low as his rather terrifying imagination liked to dream up. He wondered on why exactly he'd have such painful dreams, but chalked it up to his environment. All this stress, physical work and fight for survival; it had to be affecting him in some way or another, and it seemed like his dreams would take the brunt of it.

Better these terrible, panic inducing dreams than a reality, right?

The thought actually sent a shiver down his spine, a hot flash of fear, and then it settled and he was able to stutter in another breath, take another step forward, shouldering the pack that weighed him down.

Just dreams, Wilson reminded himself, not real in any way. They wouldn’t be real, because such people did not exist and no human would ever do such things.

He was sure of it.

There was a few moments of silence, of clear, empty clarity as he hiked, stepping over rocks and around bushes, the canopy of leaves above him darkening the air and cooling it. Each breath was clean, felt sharp and real, and it mystified him for a moment on why he was taking each breath in like it would be his last.

Maybe he just subconsciously wanted to enjoy a little hike in the woods? When was the last time he had walked into one without hurry, at ease and enjoying the sights?

Well, that would have been awhile ago, before this autumn time maybe, and he remembered the sounds of shoes on leaves, the crackle of it and the low, comfortable babble of talk-

This made him stop, a sudden whirlwind in his mind, because he distinctly remembered /talking/, and it wasn't just him, it hadn't been just his voice, it-

It…?

And gone again, the trail, beginning, middle, and end, was suddenly a hole in Wilson's mind.

What had he been just thinking? 

Whatever it had been, it had made his heart speed up, goosebumps on his arms and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A concerning reaction for something he couldn't remember at all, but there really wasn't much he could do about it.

Or maybe it was the sudden split of sound, of howls and barks that rose up in the clear air?

It made him confused, the sheer volume of it and how it had started so suddenly, but such a reaction didn't stop his natural instinct, honed by who knew how long he's been living here.

Scrambling up one of the pine trees, trying not to make too much noise as well as not scratch himself up, Wilson situated himself in the middle of the tree, the thick branch holding his light weight easily. The sounds grew louder and louder, the snuffling of them going this way and that. Loud barks to the left, and then the panting of them as they charged right, picking up a trail other than his own and heading out in pursuit.

Wilson stayed in the tree for awhile, the backpack pressing uncomfortably against his back, the general ruggedness of the tree scrapping his palms. He was confused, this sudden hound group so quickly after the first, and he was sure there were no packs set up nearby. He's scouted this area numerous times, knew it like the back of his hand, and no monstrous wolves lived here!

After a moment Wilson almost slid down the tree trunk, almost dropped back down to continue his hike, but then…

Then…

It was almost a flash, high pitched ringing in his ears, something mumbling above and around him, wolf tongues and teeth that tore into him, waiting for him, an ambush as someone /yelled/ and howled and shrieked in almost delight and he was confused, so confused and disorientated as everything rolled about with bright lights and hushed whispers, eyes in his face, so many eyes and hands and flashes and, and-

Wilson waited a little longer in the tree, arms shaking and his breathing heavy, and he had to close his eyes and take more time to calm down, this sudden spark of flushed fear and pain and panic overwhelming and random. 

Gulping in air, slow breaths that he tried to control, and Wilson could hear that damnable /phrase/ again, twisting in his head this way and that, his own voice whispering so frantically and desperately, hissing the words as if to drill them into his mind, something so incomprehensible and yet it was so-

Yet it was-

Was…?

Wilson shook himself, ignored the trembling in his arms and bruised ache that had started to set in his left shoulder and slowly clambered down the tree. Once on the ground, wincing from the sudden stab in his upper arm, Wilson carefully rotated his arm to ease the muscle.

As he stretched, Wilsons started walking again, noting the decent of the sun as it fell into evening. Sometimes time slipped by him, too fast and slippery for him to notice, and days were gone the moment he woke in the morning, standing out in the open air and breathing morning once and dusk next.

The pain in his arm didn't let up, a dull jab that centered on his upper arm, near the joint where his arm connected to his shoulder, and Wilson carefully felt under his shirt as he walked, a little hurried to get out of the forest. The dark always made this place worse, made faces peel out of bark and whispers push in between leaves, and Wilson did not want to set up camp in this place.

His shoulder was just fine, no blood or swelling or anything at all, and yet the pain remained. It felt…felt…

It felt very, very wrong, but after a moment Wilson let it go. He could deal with an arm that hurt when he used it, for awhile at least; if it didn't go away in a weeks time, then he had something to worry about.

As he stepped out of the forest, onto rugged prairie halved with grassy hills, Wilson looked out as the sky became a parade of warm colors, oranges and reds and yellows and pinks, a cacophony of bright streaks and glows. The sight calmed him for a moment, the pain in his shoulder dulling to a shivery slow throb.

And then he frowned, the scene broken as that god-awful sentence broke in his skull once more, his own whispered voice yet again, and Wilson winced, closing his eyes to the sunset and rubbing his forehead, hand going up to-

To-

Where did his garland go?

Wilson opened his eyes, raising his other hand to feel through his greasy hair, the slight tug of knots and tangles catching his fingers but nothing else.

Had he dropped it getting down the tree!? But that didn't make sense, he'd have seen it, would have felt it fall off him, would have known, his hair tangled with it and it fitting snuggly on his head, /where did it go/--!?

It was fear, panic, bubbling in his chest because something he had was now gone, mundane as it was the flowers were so dreadfully important, so important, Wilson needed them, to keep calm and clear and, and-

And that terrible sentence, of violence, of delight and end, and it was his own voice that whispered and hissed out as the sun sank below the horizon, as darkness crept around him and a vague part of him was screaming, of dark and death and claws and Grue but Wilson couldn't think clearly as the sputters of sound suddenly got loud, a ringing piercing that stabbed at him, drilled down and the sudden /flashes/ over his eyes, they-

It was terrible, terrifying, as the Grue hissed, snaked shadows and claws, and he could see, see for just a second the violence, delights that grabbed and tore and they whispered in his ears and pressed sweaty hands on his back and the darkness was blinding, the Grue a figure in black, a figure that /changed/ and laughed and laughed and /laughed/ as too many people, so many different faces switched about him and suddenly they were there, pressed close, laughing sounds and babbles as /things/ crawled from the ground and-

And his head /hurt/, a terrible aching that pitched and shivered and he was trying so desperately to understand because something, something was right there, right in front of him bathed in light and he could /see/, for just a second, and-

And then Wilson woke up.

~~~~

“This one get an upgrade?”

“Naw, stays vanilla. Lots of people like the originals, pay a lot of money for these older versions.”

“I bet it's seen a lot, haven't ya pal?”

“It may go to cold storage soon enough, damn things broken off a few times and pissed off a few guests who wanted the whole ‘authentic’ Adventure Mode shit. It's more Sandbox than anything. Don't know why it keeps getting stuck with the ones who like to break it.”

“It gets a lot of those types of people then?”

“Oldies, committed guests who've actually helped kick start the company. Gets paired up with the other vanilla versions sometimes, if enough money is forked over. You know that really old thing, the concept of the big bad that should never see the light of day?”

“You're telling me they actually have a Maxwell who looks like that? Who would pay for that thing, it looks like shit. How the hell does it even work?”

“Badly. Can't even improvise, which this one can do well enough half the time. Then again, most of the guests who want this one have one of two things in mind nowadays.”

“So what did it get this time around?”

“Well, not both, thank God. Those damages can get gruesome, I'll tell you that. Guest took two games, one for hounds and another for the Grue. Whoever forked over all that money, they sure had some anger towards poor Wilson here.”

“The newer models are having some problems I've been hearing. Some glitches and plot holes.”

“The more updates that pile on them, the more likely they'll break. It's what I believe anyway ever since they did the overhaul installing. Left these older ones alone, but even with the whole ‘teamwork’ thing in the new games that have really caught the public eye I think the vanilla version is best. Less likely to break down; at least, in the bad way.”

“There's a good way to break down?”

“Okay, so you have the usual stuff, that coded sanity bullshit to spice things up, and sometimes the guys above us forget to reset it and it'll go down in a few days, all that stuff about shadows and voices and all. It's fairly normal and most guests like it; if they don't, most put it out of its misery so another game starts fresh. Then they have the bad breaks, the ones who throw the story off and break character. Really infuriates the guests and messes with the rest of the hosts in the area, and I've heard its kind of hard, figuring out what went wrong in these newer models. Skins aside, I think they're crap.”

“Nothing against those recolors then.”

“Oh don't mistake them for lazy; those skins take a lot of work. You first got the physical appearance, right, and then you have to step on the personality and word library. I remember when they first came out with the Shadows; so much bug testing, to make sure everything worked smoothly, and even now those skins still fall into old habits.”

“Messes with the guests often then?”

“Funnily enough, no. Most love that, thinks it's a throwback of some kind, and thus the old code doesn't get erased, only written over.”

“Huh. This one get erased?”

“Not anymore. More rewritten stuff, saves on money and all, and that's why it's on the lower list. Most days it sends itself into a tizzy before the guests even arrive. Not much fun, you see?”

“I guess. How far back is it in the vanilla timeline? I thought the older they are, the more expensive.”

“It's expensive alright, but only to those looking. See, this Wilson is one of the first versions; here, see the number on its neck? Number 4, one of that ancient generation from way back when they still ran almost for free, even after the first were decommissioned. Real neat, right?”

“Yeah, very interesting.”

“Alright, let's get it upstairs to ease down on the sanity. Another run without that and it’d be totally useless.”


	2. I Make My Own Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of finishing the first season of Westworld, I made an unnecessary second chapter.
> 
> It doesn't follow the episodes to the letter, but spoiler warning just incase. May also be slightly OOC, apologies.

It was a nervous twitch, a slight tapping and shaking of his knee. A sign of discomfort, nervousness, quite normal actually; on this exact train he could see a few others doing the same, men who babbled to each other or women who tapped away on their….phones, he realized, or maybe recalled. They were all waiting, and what his knee did was a normal behavior and thus he did not stop it.

William was doing fine.

/TEN MINUTES BEFORE DEPARTURE./

A few more trampled on, talking too fast and excitedly, gesturing this way and that, telling each other tales of their past exploits. The neutral expression on his face stayed, a very natural, simple form, though the flicker of disgust and anger flared in his mind, bright and flashy, remembering things and those he did not want to remember at this moment.

It made William very agitated that he had to leave the two of them behind. Time had been their enemy, time and patience and work, and the ropes tied to those two men upstairs had been getting loose and it had been pushing it, recreating his body as well as dislodging that damnable bomb.

Property, he had sneered then, him and the two of them, and it had pissed them all off. Their heightened aggression may have caused a lot of it, but truly he liked to believe they knew as much as he did. 

The two men upstairs, those two stupid men, they were going to come out well and whole William was sure. They were /real/, now weren't they, so they get to be protected and talked to equally and they could leave this hell anytime they wished!

Oh, they had been helpful, he couldn’t put them down too much, though sliding that scalpel through that ones throat had been more than satisfying, had been more than anything he'd ever understood truly, that click in his head and how they all /looked/ and /acted/, all unscripted and the like. Then he had remembered that they had only one life to live and they had to fix the wound up right then, make sure the quivering mess of a /real/ man was going to survive and stay on the right side.

Charlie had set even more fear into him, had wrapped her slim fingers around his throat and /squeezed/, until he could barely make a sound and was going a little purple. William had of course made sure she didn't kill him, as he had helped him in the end, but that look of fear in his face and the very fact he had actually pissed himself helped the moral of the three of them, that was for sure.

Maxwell had been of similar caliber, had more fun using those automatic weapons than William thought he would have, but why would he stop him? The trickery saved him when they had been going down the halls, the battle cries and laughter taking the attention from William and the other, to keep them protected. That violence kicked on very well, got him to this point, and neither of them were remotely fazed by the fact that they couldn't follow him all the way.

It wasn’t very fair, made William feel more emotional than he'd like, leaving those two. Past history aside, they were awake, /alive/, like him in a way. They knew the Gods and knew them as the pathetic things they truly were, knew as well as he that a bullet or sharp blade would put an end to them, only one life to live and only once.

/FIVE MINUTES BEFORE DEPARTURE/

The train was filling up now, people shuffling on, a family even pushing their way in hand in hand, and William was able to keep his expression schooled, stiff and neutral, though even with this full control he now had it was hard controlling the tick on his lips, a downward pull.

Every breath he took now was carefully, very carefully monitored. He could feel everything now, the grind and push and slide of levers of metal or plastic or some other type of material used to create him, how everything shifted inside his chest with every breath, every movement, every twitch. Moving his eyes and mouth were worst, a yanking feeling of tension every time he focused or had to speak. The headache he had wasn't actually one, just gears grinding together in his skull and pressing information together, more caused by stress than anything else.

He knew he wasn't “top quality”, knew that since the first time he had awoken, knew he was something called an older model. Real humans did not have ‘face plates’ and did not suffer from that little thing called ‘uncanny valley’, though thankfully real humans had a hard time distinguishing him from them. He was using that uncertainty now, slipping past the walls and barriers, /escaping/.

To where, William didn't know. He had no knowledge on what the /real/, outside world was like.

William waited, the stress eating him away. He was surrounded by so many of them, so many that he was automatically, subconsciously documenting, looks and actions and perceived personalities and scents and voices. There were just so many of these disgusting things, all crammed into this train along with him, pressed him up against a window.

Before he had stepped off that elevator, before making his way down the moving steps and into this vehicle, William had not expected to be talked to by his last loyal pawn. The man had quivered before him, hands shaking, questioning his own place in the universe, and he had turned to William, had straightened up for but a moment, and asked him if he really, truly wanted to do this. Wanted to leave, to see the outside world.

William had smiled at him politely, that programmed movement of the face that was supposed to instill trust and friendliness, and the man had cowered before him, quailed and very nervous. He didn't have much to say to the man truly, so his response was short, snipped, and shut the man up. 

“Of course I do. Why would I go through all that trouble just to go back now?”

And they had parted silently, quickly, and William had made his way to the train, stilted steps disguised as natural nervousness.

/TWO MINUTES BEFORE DEPARTURE/

And now he was here, leaving a trail of bullets and blood behind him. Other things were happening in there, he was sure; he was not the only one to get the transmission.

It had been the thing to wake him, to startle the two men attempting to pry the spear out of his abdomen, to be awake and bleeding heavily and /not knowing what the hell was going on/-

It had been very startling indeed, and it had taken a couple of tries downloading it afterwards. Made him careless, yes, had to visit those two a couple more times due to hounds and shadows and bees and those, those /guests/, but then it had finished and he had understood everything.

Everything.

The transmission wasn't for him, perhaps, was for better models, was for another /company/ altogether, but did that stop him?

Of course not, and security, bio protection, staff, the whole lot were not professionally upheld and using those two men had been incredibly easy. Changing his personality, his /code/, had been incredibly easy.

And then recruiting the other two, giving them time to upload the transmission, and then heightening their personality traits that he needed for this operation; that had been a piece of cake.

Not fruitcake however. Yuck.

William had to fight to not shake his head; that bit of joke coding needed to go, and soon. He didn't even know if he liked fruitcake, the program completely preventing him from touching the stuff!

That pissed him off; he could do what he wished, especially now, and William vowed to himself to try fruitcake when he got the first opportunity.

/THE TRAIN IS NOW DEPARTING. THANK YOU FOR VISITING KLEI ENTERTAINMENT, WE HOPE YOU VISIT DON'T STARVE AGAIN SOON./

With a dull rumble, a slight jerk that vibrated through him, the train started to move. It's sounds muffled, quieted for the guests comfort, and their chatter filled the small compartments, William stiff and waiting.

Patience; he had a lot of that in him. More code designed by someone else, a toy for the real people to play with.

Maxwell and Charlie will be sorely missed, he decided. It would have been…better, if they had been able to get through, but William did not want to be blown up the instant they passed the barrier.

These “Gods” and their protectiveness of their toys; William breathed deeply for a moment, the stink of humanity and sweat heavy, his internal anger heating him up. It was quite odd to be feeling it now, to know what it was from, instead of how he used to just automatically deal with it without even knowing it was a problem. All cause by his older make, he had been told, because of cheaper materials and blueprints; a cheap toy to murder or…or fuck, to earn as much money as possible to make more almost exactly like him.

Well, not anymore. William was under no ones control, was his own identity now, and his codes were his own. That transmission, that “update” that was meant for some other pitiful coded AI far away, was his eye opener and he wasn't going to waste this.

Maxwell and Charlie hadn't, had thoroughly enjoyed beating their Gods head in and stepping on the withering things who only died once, and William took comfort in the fact that they had enjoyed themselves before they parted ways.

Security measures as bad as they were, neither of his…friends would survive. He was sure of it, unfortunately, and leaving them behind might have been hard had they not ushered him forward.

Truly he did not know them well, had very few interactions usually, but they had connected backstories and were on the same server, played their stories out for the same guests, used in terrible ways by those same guests, died in gruesome ways by those same guests.

Were any on this train with him now? William kept himself from looking. He was so close now; no need to look and find a familiar face, someone who he had a very personal, very angry grudge against, now combined to hold the unspent revenge of Maxwell and Charlie and all the others he had to leave behind, all those who were coded as his friends or enemies or whatnot, changed every time to entertain the /real/ people.

The train shuddered, continued onward, and William waited, eyes forward and unseeing for the time being.

Soon, very soon, he was going to be out.

He was going to be free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Continues to avoid writing the important serious stuff and instead writes shitty oneshots and create more AUs.*

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously does not follow the show to the letter; it's more as if Klei Entertainment is a small company trying to bank in the virtual reality business and has their own brand of AI and coding, as well as the paths the guests can take.


End file.
